


Maybe the Real Treasure Was the Officer Whom the Pirate Kidnapped and Seduced Along the Way

by azurish



Category: D.E.B.S. (2004)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Age of Sail, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Fluff, Humor, Kidnapping, Misses Clause Challenge, Mutual Pining, swashbuckling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 02:34:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17051426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azurish/pseuds/azurish
Summary: Lucy is a pirate captain. Amy is an officer in Commodore Petrie's pirate-hunting fleet. They fall in love anyway.





	Maybe the Real Treasure Was the Officer Whom the Pirate Kidnapped and Seduced Along the Way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RecessiveJean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RecessiveJean/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, RecessiveJean! It was a delight to write for you - thanks for giving me such a fun assignment with such an easy, enthusiastic letter and so many great prompts. Despite my not really being an Age of Sail person, your prompt for an AU where Lucy really was a pirate grabbed my attention, so I spent the past few weeks buried in piracy research and re-watching Pirates of the Caribbean. :D Of course, my rule of thumb with this fic was to strive for the same balance between realism and Rule of Cool that D.E.B.S. itself applies to the original spy setting, so very little of this is truly historically accurate. Just imagine this is a universe where 1) feminism/racism/homophobia/etc. just Didn't Exist for handwavey reasons in the past; 2) uniforms, weapons, ships, and some random details of daily life were stolen from a hodgepodge sampling of the seventeenth to nineteenth century Royal Navy; and 3) maybe there's a random time machine or something somewhere, so no one's particularly bothered by whatever anachronisms made their way into the story. Some dialogue lifted from canon (but mostly not the bits about navy regulations and brigantines :P).

The first thing Lucy noticed about the woman she was holding at sword’s point was the incredible blue of her eyes. They were the exact color of a cloudless sky, the exhilarating shade of pale blue that meant a brisk breeze in her sails and nothing but clear sky on the horizon. Meeting her gaze was like catching a glimpse of perfect freedom.

The second thing Lucy noticed about the woman was that she had her own sword extended towards Lucy’s neck, the bare steel just a few inches away from Lucy’s throat, in a perfect mirror of Lucy’s own posture.

And then, because Lucy’s priorities were totally reasonable for a pirate captain, no matter what Scud had to say, her focus wandered back up to that vivid gaze. Piracy was all about stealing pretty things, after all. What kind of buccaneer would she be if she didn’t steal as many glances as she could at those blue, blue eyes?

The sword, she could deal with later.

 

*

 

First Lieutenant Amy Bradshaw, executive officer of the _Discipline_ , had known she was in for a long day from the moment she was unceremoniously dragged into wakefulness at an ungodly hour by her commanding officer and best friend. Granted, she hadn’t expected to end her evening at the end of a pirate’s blade.  But she just knew it was going to be one of those days from the instant she was awoken by Max’s none-too-gentle shove to her shoulder.

She rolled groggily out of bed, almost tripping over her own feet as her overtaxed mind struggled to determine why Max had rousted her before dawn. Were the barracks on fire? Were the _ships_ on fire? Had pirates attacked the island? Was she going to need her sword? A blade would be useful for defending the port, but far more of a hindrance if she had to put out flames. Where had she even left her sword last night, anyway?

“Here,” Max said, thrusting the sheathed spadroon into Amy’s hands. Despite the fact that the light outside the window was still pre-dawn gray, Max was already dressed in an impeccably correct uniform, the gold laced buttons on her blue jacket polished to a shine that would have made even the most hardened drill sergeant shed a happy tear. Her own sword rested at her waist and the corners of the tricorn hat she had tucked under her arm were crisp.

Amy, meanwhile, would certainly have been unable to find her sword if Max hadn’t somehow intuited she was looking for it and located it for her. Her own rather battered tricorn seemed to regard her accusatorily from its perch atop one of her bedposts. It was all she could do to accept the offered sword without accidentally dropping it or injuring herself or Max.

“What are – wait, what’s the – uh – no fire, then?” Amy tried.

Max rolled her eyes. Evidently deciding it wasn’t worth it to wait for Amy to wake up enough to ask the right questions, she coasted straight ahead to providing answers. “There’s a boy down in the front courtyard,” she informed Amy. “Says he won’t go away until he speaks to Lieutenant Bradshaw. He’s got a messenger’s pouch with the governor’s crest on it and a note to deliver. Whatever knucklehead was manning the guardhouse let him into the barracks, and now he’s standing around getting in the way of the junior officers’ early morning drills. Phipps is in a foul mood.”

Amy groaned. The words “governor’s crest” dispelled what remained of her sleepy fogginess and left foreboding and irritation in its place. For a moment, she was tempted simply to flop back down on the bed – but it wasn’t fair to leave Max to face Phipps’s wrath alone. No wonder her friend was so short-tempered. No one should have to face Phipps’s command bellow before the sun was even up.

“I _told_ Bobby we were done,” she groused instead, as she sat back down on the end of her bed to pull on her breeches. Without comment, Max tossed her a shirt from the floor. “I don’t understand what he doesn’t get about thanks but no thanks.”

Max sat down on the chair by the desk, taking a moment to stretch her legs. Now that she had delivered her news and had someone else to gripe with, she looked a bit less fed up with the world. “What did I tell you, back in August?” she asked.

“That he wasn’t going to be worth it in the long run.” Slipping out of her sleepshirt, Amy wrestled the stiff fabric of the shirt Max had handed her over her head.

“And?”

“And he _absolutely_ wasn’t worth all this fuss in the long run,” Amy agreed glumly. Peering around her room, she spotted her white waistcoat folded up beside the bed and her officer’s coat hanging on the chair. Neither garment was wrinkled, so her late-night self clearly deserved minor congratulations for having some common sense. As she did up all her buttons, she said, “Ugh, you totally _were_ right, but did any of us really anticipate he was going to be this pigheaded about accepting rejection? Even _Dominique_ says she never seen someone carry on this badly.”

“And she’s French,” Max said.

“And she’s French, right,” Amy repeated, as she laced up her boots. She sighed. “Is wanting to have the chance to really fall in love so much to ask? I _know_ Bobby would be a reasonable match. But – maybe it’s crazy, but I think love should sweep you away, capsize you when you least expect it. It should be like a riptide, or the choppy waves of a thunderstorm; something you can’t resist. It should be like the feeling you get when you see a painting of a seascape – when the picture reaches out and pulls you in, and you find yourself transported without any choice into a whole new world.”

“Wait, not the art thing again,” Max said. “I can agree with you about Bobby, but you know how I feel about the art thing.”

Amy sat back on the bed as she buckled her sword to her side. “I know! And I really am trying not to think about art all the time – to stay focused on the ship and the mission at hand instead. But I can’t help how I feel when I see a painting that really ensnares my imagination, Max.”

“Amy, what was the first thing I ever said to you, back on our very first voyage, when we were baby sailors who didn’t even have our sea legs?” Max demanded.

“‘That’s my hammock, bitch?’”

Max’s lips curled upwards just slightly at the memory, but she held back the full smile the recollection prompted. “Okay, after I said that.”

“DEBS stick together,” Amy recited.

“Exactly,” said Max. “We’ve been through half a dozen years of training. Grueling hours, endless seasickness, so much saluting my arm nearly fell off, and bloodthirsty brigands trying to kill us daily. Now you have your lieutenant’s commission and I have my captaincy. We can’t waste this.”

“You’re right,” Amy said, sighing.

“I’m always right,” Max retorted. “So get rid of Bobby and stop thinking about the art thing. And then, as soon as the _Discipline_ is shipshape again, we’re going to go out there and become _legends_.”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” Amy said, tossing her a mock salute as she stood up. “Right, am I presentable enough for a missive from the governor’s office?”

Max regarded her critically, her brown eyes sharp. “Hmm – hold still a minute,” she said, and she plucked Amy’s hat off her head and buffed it against her sleeve. “All right, there you go. You might want to redo the collar before we report to Phipps, though.”

“We’re seeing _Phipps_?” Amy asked, as she followed Max out into the corridor.

“He either has a new mission for us or wants to yell some more about how long the repairs on the _Discipline_ are taking,” Max said.

“So I have that to look forward to after whatever new stupidity Bobby’s cooked up,” Amy said.

“Hey, look on the bright side,” said Max. “You only have to deal with the governor’s son. _I_ have to go wake up Dominique and Janet after this – and then make sure they’re ready in time for our appointment with Phipps.”

Amy winced in sympathy. “Good luck.”

“You too,” Max replied, and then with a determined set to her jaw, she turned down the corridor, her boots echoing as she marched off to awaken the remaining senior officers of the _Discipline_.

Amy let herself take a single deep breath, then squared her shoulders. Right. She was a strong, capable young woman and a promising naval officer. In the last six years she had spent sailing the Caribbean, she had weathered tougher seas and worse storms than anything Bobby could throw at her. She had built a reputation that struck fear into the hearts of all the lowlifes and scum who preyed on law-abiding citizens of the Caribbean. When she had taken her examinations at the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth, her astounding performance had so dazed her examining officers that they had tried to give her a commodore’s commission, rather than a lieutenant’s. Her skill with the blade was enough that only Dominique, who had trained as a duelist at some point in her mysterious (French) past, regularly beat her. She could tie the neatest bowline knot of any officer on the _Discipline_ , and her command of naval protocol, initially weak, had reached a respectable level under Janet’s earnest tutelage. _She could handle this_.

She stepped out into the courtyard and realized promptly that she could not, in fact, handle this.

The instant she arrived, the young man standing amidst the milling midshipmen dropped to his knees dramatically. Pulling out a scrap of paper from his billowing shirtsleeves, he began to recite, “O Amy! Sweet Amy! My heart beats for you. My beautiful lieutenant, how could you bid me adieu? Wasn’t our love was true? You are the dove of my heart that I intended to woo. Like the vast ocean you so adore, my soul is now very blue. I could not –”

“What the _hell_?” Amy hissed, finally breaking free from her horrified, embarrassed paralysis. She strode across the courtyard to his side and grabbed the paper from his hands. Quickly scanning the next few lines, she saw more of the same: tortured rhymes and hideous verse, all scrawled in Bobby Matthews’s near-illegible penmanship. For someone who nominally worked for the Colonial Office and insisted his father was training him to be his replacement, the man had truly awful handwriting.

Around her, the confused junior officers were whispering amongst themselves. From experience, Amy was certain that watching such a ridiculous scene unfold was far more entertaining than pre-dawn drills. And the unusual interruption was certainly a good excuse for avoiding the tedium of endless combat training.

The young man was peering up at her from his position on bended knee. For a moment, a pang of guilt struck her – after all, it wasn’t his fault Bobby was insufferable. But his next words drove all sympathy from her heart. “Lieutenant Bradshaw,” he said. “I come here as an official representative of the Honorable Governor Matthews, on behalf of his poor son, whose feelings you have so cruelly spurned. Young Robert begs you to reconsider –”

“Bobby is a _grown man_ ,” Amy interrupted. “If he wanted me to reconsider his suit, he could’ve come in person. Which he did. Several times. And I told him each time to go away, so I have no idea what he could possibly be thinking, sending an official messenger down here to disturb our morning training sessions.”

“Isn’t that a waste of government resources?” one of the slightly less callow-looking midshipmen asked. “Don’t think that’s properly legal, sending a governor’s messenger on personal business.”

“Yes, thank you,” Amy said. “And you lot down at the governor’s mansion wonder why everyone’s so worked up about corruption in the colonies!”

The messenger appeared uncomfortable, although Amy wasn’t sure whether to attribute that to the fact that he’d now been kneeling in the courtyard dirt for some time or to the aspersions she was casting on the governor’s administrators.

“You know what – come over here,” Amy said, gesturing him towards the archway nearest the barracks entrance. “At least let these hard-working men and women get back to their training.” Several of those hard-working men and women looked less than pleased to return to training, but if they returned to work, she would at least have some privacy to deal with Bobby’s latest foolish scheme. And moving the messenger closer to the exit was certainly a bonus.

“Right, get back to it, all of you!” Amy ordered, trying to muster all the distinguished seniority her rank was supposed to give her. With some grumbling, the youths settled back into their assigned rows for combat practice. Soon, the clacking and clunking of wooden swords striking each other echoed through the dusty courtyard. The din represented both a return to order for the early morning barracks and a welcome cover for the embarrassing conversation Amy knew was about to take place.

Well, at least that problem was sorted. Now to deal with the messenger waiting by the front gate …

“The poem wasn’t the only delivery Bobby sent me with,” the young man informed her. “He also wanted me to give you this.” He reached into his messenger’s pouch and produced an ornate silver bracelet, covered in intricate filigree. “This bracelet is a Matthews family heirloom. Bobby inherited it from the governor himself. To send the message that he will never give up on you, he wanted you to have this as a symbol of his undying love.”

Amy kept her hands firmly clasped behind her back, standing almost at parade rest. After several attempts at pressing the bracelet onto her, the messenger finally gave up and scowled at her.

She scowled right back at him. “You’re a messenger,” she said. “What do you think is going to take for him to get the message that I’m _not interested_?”

“Robert is the soul of gallantry –”

“Look, just tell Bobby I don’t want his stupid bracelet,” she snapped. She grimaced as her own words echoed in her ears – regardless of how annoying Bobby was, he was the son of a very important man, and he’d recently started wielding some real authority of his own in the island’s customs office. Moreover, _she_ was an officer of Commodore Petrie’s fleet – and she took her responsibility to uphold the dignity of the office seriously. So, gritting her teeth, she tried again. “Please. Could you please tell him I appreciate the gesture, but I can’t be persuaded? So he should save the bracelet for the real future Mrs. Matthews. Tell him not to waste it on me – but to save it for the true, ah,” she glanced down at the scrap of paper still clenched in her hands, “dove of his heart.”

As the young man opened his mouth to deliver yet another entreaty on Bobby’s behalf, Amy caught sight of Max, Dominique, and Janet across the courtyard. Dominique’s coat was half-open, revealing an insouciantly untucked shirt that was still rumpled from her night out, and Janet seemed frazzled, but both were awake enough to satisfy Max. Max gestured impatiently at Amy, jerking her head up to the command tower from which Phipps oversaw the barracks.

“I’m sorry, but I really don’t have the time for this right now,” she said, interrupting whatever speech the young man had been delivering. “I’ve got ship business to attend to. Important pirate-hunting stuff that needs to be done to keep all of you safe in your beds at night. Give Bobby my regards and tell him to keep the bracelet.”

And with that, she turned on her heel and strode over to join her fellow officers. She kept her pace brisk, hoping he would be too intimidated to follow her.

Max greeted her with a quick nod and held the door to the command tower open for her. As she ascended the wooden stairs up to headquarters behind Janet, she reflected wryly that at least dealing with Phipps wasn’t going to be her hardest task today. Placating the fleet’s exacting senior officer and instructor was difficult, but at least he was a highly rational person who listened to his subordinates’ answers, even when he didn’t like them. For once, she’d already faced her most daunting interpersonal challenge and come out ahead _before_ even meeting with her superiors.

Upon entering Phipps’s command room, Amy was glad she hadn’t voiced that thought, because Janet would definitely have accused her of jinxing them. Because there, sitting with Phipps behind his intimidatingly large desk, was Commodore Petrie.

Amy had only ever seen the officer who commanded the DEBS fleet – the _Discipline_ , the _Energy_ , the _Beauty_ , and the _Strength_ – at formal events. In her dress uniform, with her splendid bicorn and stiff, gold-trimmed collar above her beautiful blue coat, Commodore Petrie had always cut a striking figure from a distance. Now, up close, Amy discovered to her surprise that Petrie was actually quite petite: shorter than Amy herself and slim. Nevertheless, Petrie projected the same intimidatingly powerful presence she had always maintained on stage. Her blue eyes were piercing and the confident set of her jaw spoke to absolute self-assurance.

Hurriedly, Amy stumbled through a salute. Next to her, Janet and Dominique were belatedly doing the same. And when Max entered the room behind them, she stiffened into the most perfect posture Amy had ever seen her best friend adopt – quite a feat, when her usual carriage was nearly regulation-perfect.

“Commodore,” Max said, stepping into place in front of her lieutenants. “It is an honor to –”

“Captain Breyer,” Commodore Petrie cut her off. Amy saw Phipps wince and mutter, “Brewer,” but the commodore didn’t seem to hear him. “Your gratitude is noted, but we don’t have time for pleasantries today. I have to leave for the governor’s mansion as soon as possible, to inform him of the incipient threat and direct him in preparing the city watch for tonight’s dangers.”

“Tonight’s dangers?” Max repeated.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I just said,” Petrie said irritably. “The _Reynolds_ has been sighted barely a few hours out from port.”

Janet’s hand flew to her mouth and she gasped. “You can’t mean it!”

“Of course I do,” Petrie said. “Why would I say it otherwise? _Really_.”

“I was just – I just meant – if the _Reynolds_ has been spotted again, that must mean that Lucy Diamond …”

“… is alive,” Petrie confirmed. “As of today, we have determined that the notorious pirate captain Lucy Diamond, the last surviving member of the original Reynolds flotilla, is indeed alive and advancing on our island.”

In the silence that followed her pronouncement, Amy could hear Janet’s second shocked gasp clearly. Even Dominique looked disconcerted by the news. And Amy’s own thoughts were racing wildly as she tried to recall everything she had ever heard of the infamous villain …

“I really must be going,” Petrie said. “Governor Matthews is awaiting my arrival, and I need to brief him on this situation. Phipps, you have my authorization to do whatever must be done. I only hope your officers are ready.”

Max threw herself into a salute as the commodore stood, her lieutenants following her lead a beat later as they realized what decorum required. “We shall endeavor to do our utmost to keep the people we protect safe,” Max declared – but the effect was rather ruined by the way the commodore breezed past her and out of the room as she was speaking, without stopping to listen to the captain’s proclamation.

“All right, look sharp, officers,” Phipps said. “Even though this assignment is going to be strictly land-based, you four are being entrusted with one of the most dangerous missions you’ve ever embarked on.”

“Do we know when Diamond will arrive in port?” Max asked.

“I can do you one better,” Phipps replied. “Not only do we know roughly when she’ll arrive, we know where she’s going. Diamond is due at _Les Deux Amours_ sometime after eight tonight.” Dominique made a face – her opinion on what passed for French “cuisine” in English territory was well-known – but remained silent, perhaps in deference to the severity of the situation. “According to our sources, she’ll be meeting up with Ninotchka Kaprova. Kaprova is infamous for her world-class sniping abilities, but what’s less well-known is that before she began specializing in assassination, she was a top notch gun-captain in the Russian navy. Once she got tired of freezing to death with the Imperial fleet up in the Baltic, she decided to strike out on her own in more balmy climes.”

“So you think Diamond might be recruiting Kaprova for her fleet?” Max asked.

Phipps nodded gravely. “That would be our worst-case scenario. Diamond has been missing in action for two years now – rumor had it she’d been shipwrecked and drowned up in Iceland.”

“Or that she had hatched an ingenious, evil plot to sink Terra Australis!” Janet interjected. Phipps offered her one of his more sedate disapproving looks and Janet pouted. “What? I’m just repeating what the broadsheet balladeers were saying …”

“Well, Australia or Iceland, she hasn’t been seen in these waters in a while,” Phipps said. “We had hoped we’d never see her here again. But if she’s recruiting experienced sailors for her ship, she must have bigger plans in mind. The last time she terrorized the Caribbean, her crew was almost as much of a threat as she herself was. He may be a dangerous criminal and a nasty piece of work, but that first mate of hers, Scud, was as able a seaman as I’ve ever seen. If she’s building an even stronger crew, her plans might spell the end of honest trading in our islands for years to come.”

“Where do we come in?” Amy asked.

“Your mission tonight is to gather more information on Diamond’s intentions,” Phipps said. “We need to know what she’s planning. Your orders are simply to collect surveillance. You are not to engage her. For one thing, we don’t want to tip her off – it’s better if she doesn’t know we’re preparing for her return. And for another, Diamond is infamous for leaving no survivors when she fights the navy. No one has ever tangled with her and survived.” Phipps regarded them gravely. “Be careful.”

 

*

 

“Scud, I order you to turn this boat around,” Lucy commanded.

“No can do, Captain,” Scud replied, continuing to pull the oars of the two-man rowboat at a steady pace. His paddling had them approaching the shore with alarming rapidity, and Lucy’s nerves kicked up into high gear.

“I am your superior officer,” she tried.

“Sure,” Scud said. “You’re also perennially single and haven’t had a date since before you went off swimming with the penguins.”

“I had important pirate-y things to do up in Iceland, you know that – and that’s not the point,” Lucy said, with a huff. “As the captain of every damn ship you’ve ever crewed, including this tiny boat, I order you to row us back to the _Reynolds_.”

“And let you stand up the Russian gunner I spent so long finding for you? Not an option,” Scud said.

“I could make you walk the plank,” she threatened.

“I guess that’s a risk I’m going to have to take,” Scud said. His oars cut smoothly through the waves with a series of quiet, rhythmic splashes. “I’m sure the sharks would find me delicious. But not as delicious as you’re going to find the wonderful, romantic dinner you’re about to spend with a beautiful, witty, internationally-feared sniper.”

Lucy groaned. “What if she’s all stiff and formal from her time in the navy and it makes the whole evening awkward? Or she’s one of those gunners who doesn’t ever shut up about how superior gunlock cannons are to linstock cannons and I have to listen to that for hours? Or – or what if she actually, unironically likes sea shanties?”

“Well, she’s Russian, so at least her sea shanties would be new to you,” Scud said.

“Why do I get the feeling you’re not taking me seriously?”

“Lucy, I’m not asking for something impossible here,” Scud said. “No gold or spices or patterned silks. I just want you to be open to falling in love, Captain. Let loose for a night – let yourself be happy.”

“I _am_ happy,” Lucy insisted.

“You know you haven’t been happy,” Scud said. “Not since you got dumped two years ago.”

“I wasn’t dumped –”

“Oh, Lucy. You were dumped, and you were dumped hard. It’s hard to get more definitively dumped than being stranded by your ex on an uncharted island with no ship and no more girlfriend.”

Lucy glared at him. “And reminding me of that is supposed to make me feel happy?”

“No, but you’ve spent long enough being sad,” Scud told her. “The crew’s worried about you. We all care about you. We just want you to give dating a try again!”

“OK, but the last time ended up with me spending two years recovering in Iceland, so maybe that’s not such a good idea.”

“Not every girl you date is going to try to steal your ship,” Scud said. “Just stop overthinking everything. Stop objecting to every date I find and give love a chance for once. Trust your gut and let yourself actually, really be happy.”

“You make it sound so reasonable,” Lucy grumbled.

Right as Scud cracked a smile, the boat’s shallow keel ground to a halt against the sand beneath them. He stepped out into the waves and pulled the landing vessel the last few feet into shore. Lucy disembarked after him and joined him in dragging the rowboat up the dark beach to hide it in the tall grass above the pale sand. The moonlight was bright enough for them to determine that no other shady souls were making use of this concealed beach tonight. No other crafts were already tucked away in the grass, and the tide was about to turn, so it unlikely that anyone else would try the landing for at least another few hours.

They made the journey into the city in silence, although Lucy felt that such absolute stealth was probably overkill. Sneaking around the port guards was child’s play, even easier than she had expected. Granted, she usually did this sort of thing with her entire crew at her back, and it was far more difficult to conceal dozens of ruffians with pistols and swords than two people dressed for a respectable night out. Even still, she allowed herself to scoff at the laxness of their patrols. Really, it was like people were _asking_ to be raided.

The port town was just starting to liven up with its evening bustle when she and Scud reached their destination. In the clear moonlight, _Les Deux Amours_ looked like the perfect location for a romantic dinner. The inn was a tall, attractive building, all dark wood and neat architectural lines, with a sign hanging out front bearing an image of two lovers’ faces. Even the alley behind the inn was unusually clean, free from the sort of accumulated dirt and the smell of brine that usually permeated back alleys in seaside towns. Somehow, rather than serving as a reassuring omen for the date to come, the picture-perfect setting just added to Lucy’s unease.

As Scud watched with an air of long-suffering patience, she paced back and forth in the alley. “Can’t we go out for a night on the town instead?” she whined. “Scud – Scud – you’re my best friend, my wingman, my loyal first mate. How about we go to one of our usual watering holes and just tell the rest of the crew the date didn’t go well? They won’t ask any questions.”

“Come on, Lucy. You can do this,” Scud said. “You’re the most feared pirate in the seven seas! Captain of the fastest ship ever to sail these waters! Bane of Commodore Petrie’s existence and scourge of fat cat merchants!”

“It’s hard to feel like the most feared pirate captain in the world when I’m this scared of a stupid date,” Lucy admitted.

Scud patted her shoulder. “It’s all right. I’m sure Nelson was nervous at Trafalgar – but just like the old admiral, you’re going to coast to victory and conquer all your obstacles. Without dying. Don’t copy that bit from Nelson.”

She offered Scud a shaky smile. “OK. How do I look?”

“Like a thousand pounds of looted gold,” he told her. “Seriously, you look great. Relax. Remember, this is supposed to be fun. And I’ll be back here, guarding the exits, in case of trouble – or in case you _really_ need an excuse to leave the date.” When Lucy immediately lit up, he added, “But don’t try signaling me before you actually finish your main course, because I won’t come.”

She sighed. “Ugh, fine. Thanks, Scud.” Squaring her shoulders, she walked out of the alley and back onto the lantern-lit cobblestone road before the inn.

“Now – knock ’em dead! But not really,” her first mate called from behind her.

Her jaw set, Lucy pushed open the door to the inn and found herself in a tastefully-decorated main room occupied mostly by well-dressed couples. The whole room smelled of savory food and delicious spices; not even a hint of salty sea tang had snuck into the mouth-watering aroma. A single candle rested on the dark cherry wood of each table, lending an intimate, romantic ambiance to the scene.

Even if Scud hadn’t given Lucy Ninotchka Kaprova’s wanted poster to study, the other woman would have been easy to spot. For one thing, she was the only person sitting alone. For another, the amount of spotted fur that adorned the elaborate cape she was wearing would only have been fashionable in a country that had long benefited from the largesse of the Siberian fur trade. Where did Scud even find these people?

Still, her best friend had begged her to try. And she was Captain Lucy Diamond – she wasn’t going to let herself be beaten by a date, even if it was with the most garishly dressed Russian lady since Catherine the Great.

So she strolled over to Ninotchka’s table and put on what she hoped was a friendly smile. No, she’d better try for a flirtatious smile – oh, hell, she was sending mixed signals already. _Get out of your head, Lucy, and just act_ natural _on a date for once_ , she ordered herself sternly.

“You must be Ninotchka,” Lucy said, trying to slide smoothly into the empty chair. She doffed her tricorn in a gesture that she hoped conveyed both respectful gallantry and suave flirtation, then stowed it away underneath her chair.

“Da. You are Lucy?” Ninotchka asked.

“That’s me all right,” Lucy said.

“I thought so. You are exactly as the singers say you are,” Ninotchka informed her.

Lucy smiled uncomfortably. “Is that a good thing?”

“Is a good thing. Even in Russia, we hear tales of the bloodthirsty Captain Diamond. And now I see you look like a real pirate – not one of these ка́перы who hide behind the flag of a navy.”

“Uh – ка́перы?” Lucy asked, stumbling over the word.

“I do not know what you call them in English,” Ninotchka said. “The pirates who fight with letters from their kings?”

“Oh, privateers,” Lucy supplied.

“Da, those cowards,” Ninotchka said. The wavering candlelight cast strange shadows on her animated features as she warmed to the topic at hand. “If you are going to break the law – break the law! Be a pirate! Do not hide behind your country’s flag and say you raid for the honor of your kingdom. We had too many of them in the Imperial Navy – it was the shame of our fleet.”

Seizing on the chance to steer the conversation away from work and towards Ninotchka’s personal life, Lucy asked, “Was that why you left the Russian navy? Going from being a navy gunner to working as a freelance sniper must have been a real shock.”

The blonde woman shrugged. “Eh. It was different. Mostly, I left because I could not stand those newfangled guns. The Swedes, they come in with their hemmemas and rout our forces! And what does our navy do? When we capture them, we build our own hemmemas! More guns, true, but these are modern cannons. There is no risk to firing a modern cannon – it is not a real job.”

“So, ah, you don’t like recent trends in ship artillery?” Lucy asked.

“Da,” Ninotchka said. “These modern cannons, you merely pull the lanyard and they fire. No kick from the cannon. No sparks. Does the charge ever flash back and blow in your face? No. This is not a true gunner’s gun.”

“You must have really loved those old guns, huh,” Lucy said.

“Exactly!” said Ninotchka. “You understand. What is the point of a cannon if it cannot recoil onto a foolish gun crew, I ask you? Many of my least favorite crewmates were crushed this way. I could not stand the idea of being on a ship where the cannons were so safe, they never blew out back onto you.”

“Huh, that – sure must be something,” Lucy tried.

“You could even use the linstock for sparking the flame to stab your enemies, in a fight. I once stabbed two enemy sailors with the spear blade of my linstock and went right back to lighting the charges. Now what can you do with these new guns? Nothing,” Ninotchka said sadly.

By the middle of her date’s rant, Lucy was staring at her in disbelief; now, she was certain that whatever expression her face was making, it couldn’t be attractive. It was all she could do to keep her jaw from dropping. Mustering a smile – flirtatious or otherwise – was beyond her at this point in the evening.

She had tried at the start of the date! She had arrived at _Les Deux Amours_ with the best of intentions! But even Scud couldn’t have intended to force her to listen to stories about people being crushed or stabbed or blown up in the name of romance. Surely, _surely_ he hadn’t meant his “main course” rule to apply in this sort of emergency. Desperately, she tried to signal him through the back window to the alley. In case he thought she simply had cold feet, she tried to convey how terribly the date was going by letting some of the disgust she was feeling color her expression. Unfortunately, he either didn’t notice her signal or didn’t realize how truly dire the situation was.

Ninotchka, however, noticed the distressed faces Lucy was pulling. Breaking off in the middle of some new tale of an unfortunate sailor getting maimed by a cannon, she said, “Is something wrong? Are you OK?”

Right. If Scud wasn’t going to rescue her, she was going to have to save herself. “You know what, I really don’t feel well,” Lucy declared. “I think – scurvy. I think I must have scurvy.”

“ _Scurvy_?” Ninotchka echoed.

“I mean, you must know how it is – guess I just plain forgot to eat any fruit while we were away at sea. A couple weeks with no fruit, and bam, there you go, scurvy! Don’t you hate how that happens?” A muscle twitched in Ninotchka’s jaw, and Lucy plunged ahead, “Anyway! I hate to have to leave you like this, but – I really have to get back to the _Reynolds_. Our ship surgeon will want to check me over and make sure I get better. From the scurvy.”

“Are you trying to get rid of me?” Ninotchka demanded heatedly.

“Uh – I mean – what?” Lucy said. A nervous laugh escaped her.

Unexpectedly, Ninotchka’s expression morphed from anger to an earnest desperation that made Lucy feel, if possible, even more uncomfortable. Rage, Lucy knew how to deal with. But this frantic supplication was too much. “Is it me?” Ninotchka asked. “Is it something I did? I can change! I only arrived in your Caribbean recently – please, give me time. I am worth a chance, I promise.”

“Oh, God, please, it’s not you,” Lucy said. “I should – I should go, it’s … you know how contagious scurvy is …” She bent down to retrieve her tricorn, but when she looked up again, the imploring expression on Ninotchka’s face stopped her dead in her tracks when she met her gaze again.

Lucy sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “It’s not you, OK?” she said. “It’s me – I’m not ready for this. I’m not in the right headspace, and I keep overthinking all of this, and I don’t think it’s fair to you. It’s not fair to start a relationship when I can’t really connect.”

“But what about what _I_ think is fair?” Ninotchka begged. “Won’t you give us a chance?”

“I can’t – Ninotchka, you have to understand –” Lucy started, unsure where she was going to go with this explanation but hoping it would convince the Russian sniper to let her leave, when the door to the street burst open and all hell broke loose.

 

*

 

 _Les Deux Amours_ was an unexpectedly brilliant location for a criminal rendezvous, Amy decided. The upscale inn had seemed a peculiar choice for a notorious pirate’s business meetings, but one glance around the quiet, dim front room had forced her to reconsider. The flickering candlelight was perfect for disguising wanted criminals and protecting diners’ anonymity. The hushed atmosphere made it difficult to eavesdrop on any nearby tables. The solid furnishings would offer ample cover in the event of a gunfight. And the inn’s multiple exits – two in front to the street, a staircase up to the inn proper, a backdoor through the kitchens, and at least one more exit to a side alley – made it easy for any shady characters caught in public to flee.

Currently, the senior officers of the _Discipline_ were huddling together over a single table in the back, trying their best to look inconspicuous. Between the four of them, they had eyes on every exit and entrance. Dominique, whose unusual array of skills included lip-reading, was sitting with her back to the wall, so she had a clear view of the table where Kaprova was waiting alone for her co-conspirator. Now they, too, awaited the fabled pirate’s arrival.

Still irked by Phipps’s dismissal of her broadsheet-based knowledge of the dread Captain Diamond, Janet was passing the time by regaling the other three women with rumors she had heard. Her knowledge of sea shanties and port gossip made her a self-appointed authority on the captain.

“The _Reynolds_ is supposed to be the fastest ship on the seas,” Janet informed them. “But it’s not just good craftsmanship or trickery with her sails. _I’ve_ heard that she can reach near fifteen knots even on a windless day. It’s because she tore her own rotten, black heart out of her chest and sold it to the devil himself, in exchange for a brigantine that could never be outrun.”

Dominique frowned. “But why would the devil want a rotten heart? Surely he would only trade such a spectacular ship for a rare specimen.”

“OK, I’m just telling you what everyone knows,” Janet said, clearly miffed. “Her ship is faster than sin – and she has no real feelings to speak of. She’s utterly ruthless; no DEB sailor has ever come out of an encounter with her alive. She doesn’t care a whit for any living soul – ever since the sinking of the Reynolds flotilla, she’s been the only surviving member of her family, and she’s never been known to have a paramour. Because she can’t love anyone, since the devil has hear heart.”

“With her original crew and father gone, she must be lonely,” Amy mused. “I can’t imagine she has much time for love.”

“Amy, please. You can’t be _lonely_ if you don’t have a heart,” Janet said. “And hers is in the hands of demons now.”

“Speak of the devil,” Max interjected, as a slim figure slipped in through the front door. “Look alive, people, we’ve got eyes on Diamond.”

Amy stared at the infamous pirate with ill-concealed fascination. So this was Captain Lucy Diamond. She was a surprisingly slight woman – as slender and sharp as a blade, Amy thought, and certainly just as deadly. Her black tricorn, decorated with a feathery red plume, sat at a jaunty angle atop her long, straight brown hair. Her long coat was accented with red embroidery, and her white shirt was open a few buttons further at her neck than was entirely appropriate. Amy found her gaze drifting towards the bare skin at Diamond’s throat and the delicate collarbones exposed by her shirt. Shaking herself, she catalogued the weapons on her person: a cutlass visible at her waist, the outlines of at least two more knives by her sleeves, and possibly a pistol concealed within her black coat. Between her rakish good lucks and the dangerous charm she exuded, Diamond looked exactly like a pirate from some romantic painting.

Kaprova had her back to them, but Lucy’s seat was in full view of their table – the better for Dominique to read her lips. Although the dim lighting impeded any effort to make out clear details, Amy thought the light in Diamond’s large brown eyes appeared nervous as she greeted her dinner partner. Perhaps she was simply keen for the transaction to go well and Kaprova to join her crew.

The two began talking, but the muted acoustics of the high-end inn were doing their job: from this distance, there was no chance the _Discipline_ ’s officers could have listened in on their conversation. Luckily, Dominique’s skillset obviated the need to hear to their actual words. The French lieutenant was frowning with concentration as she tried to follow along.

“What are they saying?” Max whispered, after a few minutes of silence.

“They have been talking about killing and guns,” she offered. “Kaprova is saying what cannons she likes to use for warfare, what cannons the Russian navy uses, how people can be killed with cannons. Very bloody, very gory.”

“Figures,” Janet whispered. “What did I say? Heartless.”

Shushing Janet, Max muttered, “Phipps isn’t going to like this. We’ll have to keep an eye out for someone transporting new cannons. If Diamond outfits her whole ship to Kaprova’s specifications, the _Reynolds_ would really become the terror of these waters.”

“There is more about the cannons. How they work, who can man them, what ships they are on,” Dominique reported. Suddenly, Diamond rose to her feet, twisting slightly away from their line of sight as the conversation grew heated.  “And now – they are arguing about scurvy? Wait. I cannot tell – perhaps Diamond is saying she contracted scurvy and this is why she was missing for years? Or perhaps –”

At that moment, the inn’s front door burst open.

“Oh my _God_ ,” Amy hissed, right as Bobby Matthews strutted into the room.

He was dressed like a broadsheet printer’s blockcut picture of a pirate hunter – in other words, theatrically, impractically, and absolutely ridiculously for a customs officer. The sword he had fastened to his waist was a full-sized rapier – a stupid choice for combat at sea, where the close quarters and numerous obstacles of a ship’s deck rewarded shorter blades with simple, flexible hilts, like Amy’s own spadroon or even Captain Diamond’s cutlass. The powder from his wig had rubbed off all over the base of his black tricorn, speckling it with random splotches of pale dust. His black velvet waistcoat was far too immaculate for any real pirate hunter’s clothing, and the truly ridiculous pair of curly, buckled boots he wore would impede his mobility in any fight.

“Lieutenant Bradshaw,” Bobby called out, his voice loud and clear in the quiet room. The hushed conversations around the room died out as all eyes turned to the intruder disturbing the tranquil atmosphere of _Les Deux Amours_. “I sent a courier to the DEBS barracks to deliver a gift to you today – but he returned with my present still in hand.  When Commodore Petrie told my father where you were, I knew I had to come myself and beg you to accept it in person.”

“DEBS?” Lucy Diamond said, her hand immediately going to the hilt of her sword.

Well, that was their cover well and truly blown.

“Bobby, I told you to _leave me alone_ ,” Amy said angrily, rising to her feet. “I’m on the job right now, and I don’t have time for this!”

Her fellow lieutenants and her captain rose to flank her, but Kaprova had also clambered to her feet in the wake of Bobby’s interruption. The Russian sniper proved as good as her reputation; without hesitation, she pulled a pistol from somewhere within her voluminous fur cape and fired off a shot at the _Discipline_ ’s officers. Max tackled Janet out of the way of the bullet just in time, and Dominique and Amy hit the floor as well.

Around them, pandemonium broke out as the well-to-do diners found their evening interrupted not just by gunfire but by one of the most infamous pirates ever to terrorize the Caribbean. Someone must have recognized her, because Amy heard a voice shout, “It’s Lucy Diamond!”  The crowd began to panic in earnest. Their yelling and shouting almost drowned out the next report of Kaprova’s gun – although the sharp smell of gunpowder and lead in the air made it easy to tell she had discharged her weapon again.

Kaprova fired off several more shots across the restaurant, before Dominique managed to retrieve her own piece and return fire. With all the civilians in the way, it was almost impossible to target the two criminals. Amy prepared to try her luck at close quarters combat, ducking behind a table for cover and then crawling closer to where Diamond and Kaprova had been seated. Max, who clearly had the same idea, flashed Amy a quick thumbs up.

Unfortunately, in the chaos, one of the alarmed civilians must have knocked the candle off their table into someone’s drink, because a large plume of flames suddenly roared up in the center of the restaurant. The diners’ frantic cries reached a fever pitch as the flames spread quickly to the dry wooden furniture.

With all the smoke blocking any last hope at a clear sightline, Max abandoned her efforts at surreptitiously crawling towards the two criminals and stood up. Amy followed her to her feet and scrambled to her side, listening for the captain’s orders.

“You go after them,” Max commanded, her voice slightly hoarse from the smoke. “I’ll direct Dominique and Janet in evacuating the civilians. But we still need to find out what Diamond is up to. She left by the back exit through the kitchens, so start out in the back alley. If you can’t find her – or even if you can – check in within the next half hour. Understood?”

“Understood,” Amy said.

“Stay safe,” her best friend ordered, and Amy nodded.

“You too,” she said, and then she spun around towards the back exit and pushed her way through the crowd. Time was of the essence if she wanted to find Lucy Diamond or Ninotchka Kaprova before they disappeared into the port’s nighttime underbelly.

As Amy emerged into the back alley behind _Les Deux Amours_ , she caught sight of that striking black and red coat just as it disappeared into the evening gloom at the end of the alley. Unsurprisingly, Diamond was trying to go to ground in the labyrinth of back alleys that led down towards the docks and the seediest parts of the port city. Although Amy didn’t make a habit of roaming those districts, she knew them as well as any sometime officer of the law, so she took off like a shot after Diamond.

The two wound their way through the twisty warren of dimly lit streets in a desperate chase. Amy nearly lost her quarry several times, only persevering in her pursuit thanks to chance glimpses of the pirate’s distinctive hat or that swinging curtain of long brown hair. The closer they drew to the docks, the stronger the smell of fish and brine grew and the longer the space between working lanterns grew, until finally Amy found herself in an alley so badly lit she could only see a few feet in front of her, the smell of salt so thick in the air she could taste it. She bit out a curse underneath her breath as she hurried around the next corner, because she’d never be able to pick up the trail again in these conditions –

Someone else – someone who had been racing pell-mell down the next street and was taking this corner at a dead run – crashed straight into her. Both she and the stranger tumbled over onto the grimy alley cobblestones. Somehow, her instincts sensed what her brain had yet to process, and without entirely understanding her impulse to recover quickly, she leaped back to her feet, her sword already in hand –

– and found herself staring straight into an instantly recognizable face. The shock sent her thoughts spinning, but she kept a cool enough head to lock the muscles of her sword arm in place. A single drop of sweat dripped down Amy’s spine and she was still panting from the exertion of the chase, but she ignored all physical discomfort. She didn’t dare let her spadroon waver from its place before the pirate’s neck. Even though she was no longer running, her heartbeat had begun to speed up instead of slowing down. Janet’s dire pronouncements from earlier echoed in her memory as her racing pulse pounded in her ears.

“You’re Captain Lucy Diamond,” Amy breathed.

_No DEB officer had ever met her and lived to tell the tale._

The captain blinked, tearing her intense gaze away from Amy’s face and scanning her uniform. Her lips suddenly twisted as she registered the DEBS emblem embroidered over the breast of Amy’s blue coat, and something shuttered off in her eyes. “And you’re one of Commodore Petrie’s pirate hunters,” she said. Somehow, the occupation Amy took such pride in didn’t sound particularly complimentary in her mouth.

Amy’s hands were clammy around the hilt of her sword, but her grip stayed firm and the point of her sword remained steady. Even as her thoughts whirled in disarray, her body knew what to do. Muscle memory ingrained from endless drills guided her movements better than her conscious mind ever could have. Not for nothing had Amy become known as the hardest-training young officer in the DEBS fleet, and now all those monotonous hours perfecting her form were paying off.

Right. She could do this. Captain Diamond might have a terrifying reputation, but at the end of the day, she was just another pirate. And Amy had worked for years to master the art of pirate hunting.

She summoned up the familiar words, trying to sink into the calm of rote memory. “In the name of the King, you are under arrest,” she recited, exerting not inconsiderable willpower to keep both her voice and the tip of her sword level. “You will be charged with –”

Diamond interrupted her with a snort of disbelief. “You’re trying to arrest me?”

“You’re a pirate,” Amy said.

“You have a sword at your throat,” Diamond replied. She flicked her cutlass ever so slightly to the left, as if to remind Amy of its presence. The gesture stirred a tiny puff of air against the delicate skin of Amy’s throat, and Amy swallowed involuntarily. She had to clamp down on the urge to flinch back, knowing that her own spadroon was far too heavy to allow for such fluid maneuvering. If she lost her balance, she wouldn’t recover in time to block any blows from Diamond’s shorter, more flexible blade.

“Yes, but _you_ have a sword at yours,” Amy parried.

Diamond conceded the blow with a quirk of an eyebrow.

For several long moments, neither of them said anything. The sounds of the port at night were magnified – the rhythmic lapping of waves against the shore, the muted din from the distant taverns, the creaks and groans of the ships in the harbor, the occasional cries from the sailors on watch. But the air between them was absolutely still. In the silence, Diamond resumed that intense, probing stare, her eyes narrowing as she regarded Amy. There was something in those expressive features that sent a shiver of an entirely new kind up Amy’s spine, and she tried as best she could to ignore it.

“Look,” Amy said at last. “I really wouldn’t like to die today.”

“Funny, me neither,” Diamond said. She cocked her head to the side, her battered tricorn listing precariously with the motion. “What do you want to do about it?”

“Seems to me we can both get what we want, Captain,” Amy said. “If you put down your sword, I swear on my honor as a lieutenant of the DEBS fleet that I won’t take advantage of the opening in your guard to harm you.”

The pirate’s lips twitched, although Amy couldn’t see what was so funny. “Or how about you put down your sword and _I_ swear not to take advantage of that?”

“Right, but I’m the navy officer here, and – no offense – you’re the pirate. So I think that means my word is a bit more dependable. If you put down your sword, I swear I’ll just handcuff you and then put down mine as well. I can escort you back to the guard garrison in the harbor and no one has to get hurt.”

“Because being delivered into the friendly hands of his Majesty’s finest officers doesn’t count as getting hurt in the long run.”

Amy frowned. “Right, well, my plan is still the most trustworthy way to make sure neither of us dies tonight – which you said you don’t want to do any more than I do.”

“Counter-point: my plan doesn’t involve anyone getting handcuffed and dragged away to face the king’s justice,” Diamond said, her tone far more arch than Amy felt the situation called for. “You put down your sword, I let you go on your merry way, and we never have to cross paths again.”

“Once again, you’re the pirate here, Captain Diamond, so you’re kind of _supposed_ to face the king’s justice, especially if you’re going to go meet openly with co-conspirators in a law-abiding establishment –”

Diamond huffed out an exasperated breath. “I wasn’t meeting with a _co-conspirator_ ,” she said. “When you DEBS and that young idiot running after you blundered into my dinner engagement, you were interrupting a private meeting, not a business transaction. It was strictly above board. Also, seriously, I was only eating dinner at _Les Deux Amours_. It’s not like I commandeered the governor’s mansion for a romantic rendezvous.”

Stunned, Amy’s grip on her sword briefly went slack. “That dinner was a _romantic rendezvous_?”

Diamond gave an uncomfortable shrug with her free shoulder. For the first time, she looked something other than unflappable. “Well. Technically. It was supposed to be.”

Regaining her hold on the hilt of her spadroon, Amy stared at her. What was unmistakably a blush was slowly spreading its way across the pirate’s cheekbones. “Wow. I just – really?”

Diamond’s cheeks colored further. A small part of Amy noted that flustered was an unexpectedly attractive look on the other woman. “I’m a pirate, not a priest,” she said. “I’m allowed to try to find some damn companionship if I want to.”

“I guess. It’s just – not really what I expected from the dread Captain Diamond, scourge of the seven seas,” Amy said. Lightly, she added, “Guess that means you must not have traded your heart to the devil for the fastest ship on the seas, then?”

A startled laugh escaped Diamond, her expression flickering from defensive to amused in just a heartbeat. Amy’s breath caught for a moment at the pirate’s quicksilver grin, a bright flash of teeth shining in her sun-weathered face, her eyes crinkling up with laughter. Something about how genuine the humor that lightened her features was struck right at Amy’s heart. Until that very moment, she hadn’t realized how badly she’d been missing that sort of unadulterated authenticity over the last few years, while she’d been living under the precise protocols and stifling codes of conduct of the DEBS fleet. But Diamond’s unfiltered, unaffected amusement eased something rigid Amy hadn’t even noticed calcifying in her chest.

“Don’t tell me you’ve actually been listening to all those ballads,” Diamond said, after regaining her breath. “Broadsheet printers will make up whatever cockamamie nonsense they think will sell. C’mon, you don’t _really_ believe I’m as bad as all those things they sing about me, do you?” She smiled another one of those dazzling smiles at Amy.

“Honestly, it’s pretty hard to know what to believe about you,” Amy said. “Those ballads are all anyone knows. It’s hard to figure you out when no one who lives within the bounds of the law has ever met you and lived to tell the tale.”

“Until now,” Diamond said.

“Right. Until now,” Amy repeated.

Slowly and deliberately, Diamond lowered the point of her cutlass, until it was a more comfortable distance from Amy’s throat. The sword was still close enough to function as an effective threat – and her earlier flashy swordsmanship had left no doubt in Amy’s mind that her blade could be back at Amy’s neck in the blink of an eye – but the gesture nevertheless eased Amy’s tension. In return, she let her own blade drop a few inches as well.

“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage,” Diamond said. “It seems you know everything about me, and I don’t even know your name.”

Perhaps it was foolhardy to give her name to a pirate, but Amy was an officer of the DEBS fleet, and certain courtesies had been drilled into her. “Lieutenant Bradshaw, of the _Discipline_ ,” she said. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Captain Diamond.”

“Lieutenant. That’s an interesting first name,” Diamond said. When Amy hesitated, she added, “Your parents must have had very definite career ambitions for you when –”

“It’s Amy,” Amy said. “Lieutenant Amy Bradshaw.”

“Amy, then,” Diamond said. “And I’m Lucy. Under other circumstances, I’d offer to shake your hand, but …” she trailed off and nodded towards her sword hand.

“My offer’s still on the table, you know,” Amy said. “You could just put your sword down. That way I could shake hands with you before I handcuff you. Lieutenant’s honor.”

Diamond grinned. “You’re something else, Amy.”

“You’re not the first one to say that, Captain.”

“If I can’t convince you to let me go, can I at least convince you to call me Lucy?” the pirate asked.

“If I call you by your given name, Captain, will you put down the cutlass?”

Lucy sighed as if put upon. “You’re very set in your ways, aren’t you?” she said. “Come on, haven’t you ever done anything you weren’t supposed to?” She looked up at Amy through her lashes, amusement dancing in her warm, dark eyes, and Amy felt her pulse quicken. Tongue-tied, she scrambled for an answer, but she couldn’t concentrate with Lucy looking at her like that –

The near-silence around them was suddenly broken by a voice Amy knew well. “Amy!” she heard Janet cry out. “Amy! Where are you?”

The desperation in Janet’s voice sent a wave of guilt through Amy, and she couldn’t help turning to call out, “Here! I’m over here!” Her crewmates must have been worried out of their minds about her – and with good reason. She was far overdue to check back in, and they had surely assumed the worst, given Diamond’s reputation –

 _Lucy_. Amy whirled back around, but she knew even before she turned that Lucy Diamond would no longer be standing in the alleyway before her. She squinted into the murkiness at the end of the street, but she couldn’t make out any figures in the smoky, flickering light of the single working lantern. Lucy was no fool; she would hardly have lived to become one of the most feared pirates alive if she was in the habit of overlooking such easy opportunities to escape.

But then, Amy realized, as Janet’s clattering footsteps drew closer, Lucy hadn’t just had an opportunity to escape. When she’d instinctively turned her back on the pirate captain, Amy had given her the chance to run her through just as much as the chance to flee. The fact that Lucy hadn’t taken advantage of her unguarded back meant _something_. And now Amy was the only naval officer ever to meet Captain Lucy Diamond and live to tell the tale, and that, she was sure, was going to mean something as well.

 

*

 

By the time Lucy made her way back to the beach, Scud had already returned to their meetup point and was waiting for her. Even from a distance, she could see the anxiety he was trying to conceal in the stiffness of his posture. It was heartwarming, really, knowing how much he cared.

“It’s me,” Lucy called out as she approached. Scud whirled to face her, relief painted clearly across his features.

“God, Captain, you had me worried there,” Scud said. “Don’t _do_ that to me.” Under the pretext of dusting back alley dirt off her coat, he brushed a hand against her shoulder. Lucy knew him well enough to understand what the gesture meant, though, so she treated him to a genuinely warm smile.

“We’ve missed the tide,” he told her, drawing back. She nodded; she had reckoned as much, from the position of the moon in the sky. “And the whole port is buzzing with activity anyway – I wouldn’t be surprised if the DEBS got a few of their barks out on the water, trawling the harbor for any miscreants who happened to be making their way back to, say, the _Reynolds_ at this time of night.”

“We might as well wait for the dawn tide, then,” Lucy said. Her first mate nodded in agreement, and the two of them sat down next to each other on the grass, backs resting against their rowboat.

The ensuing silence was more than companionable, but Lucy was buzzing with too much restrained energy for her to enjoy the quiet for very long. Something in her had come back to life when she had run right into that lieutenant – something fierce and vital that had skipped right past all her usual hesitation. Finding herself at a pirate hunter’s sword’s point had certainly jolted her into reacting without any artifice, the shock sparking the grim determination of her basic self-preservation instincts. And then, once the threat faded away, a growing delight replaced that raw ferocity and slowly began to warm her chest as Amy proved to be far more than just a mere DEB officer. Now Lucy felt like she was humming with it, high on adrenaline both from the physical chase and from the verbal chase that had ensued, and she couldn’t keep herself from smiling.

She had been just about to break the silence herself, because she needed to say something about Amy to someone, when Scud spoke up. “So, uh. Pirate hunters aside, how did the date go?” Scud asked.

“Would you believe me if I said the pirate hunters arriving was the best part of the date?” Lucy asked wryly.

“Lucy! You said you’d give the date tonight an honest try.”

“I did!” Lucy replied. “Oh my God, Scud, you weren’t even there. But trust me, Ninotchka was an absolute _shipwreck_ of a person. When she wasn’t telling me all the grievous injuries you could get by being crushed by cannons, she was talking about how you could get blown up them. And she thought that was a good thing!”

Scud winced.

“But it’s not as bad as you think,” Lucy continued. “I actually did mean it when I said the pirate hunters crashing our dinner was the best part. Because Ninotchka is a hard no, but – Scud, I met someone.”

“You did?” Scud asked, with some confusion. Then his expression suddenly tightened with suspicion. “You didn’t do anything foolhardy, did you?”

“Nope, not at all,” said Lucy.

Scud squinted over at her, trying to pin her in place with his stare, but Lucy just smiled brightly and looked away, out over the starlit sea. “OK. I give. Who did you meet?”

“Lieutenant Amy Bradshaw,” Lucy said. “Of the _Discipline_.” For a brief instant, she felt absurdly like some civilian with her first crush on a naval officer, proudly announcing his shipboard appointment to her friends and family.

“The _Discipline_ as in Commodore Petrie’s _Discipline_?” Scud said. He didn’t even wait for Lucy to confirm the truth, instead running his hands through his already-mussed hair. “Lucy, I cannot believe you sometimes. Wait, actually, wait a minute. Did you say Lieutenant Amy Bradshaw?” At Lucy’s nod, Scud groaned. “That’s even worse! You do know who Bradshaw is, right, Captain?”

“I’ve been living with penguins for the last few years, Scud,” Lucy said. “Enlighten me.”

“She’s the navy’s perfect score, Lucy! The burgeoning pride of the DEBS fleet! Her lieutenancy examinations were so perfect that she basically broke the test. She’s a pirate hunting machine – a sailor who’s spent the last half-decade just training herself to take down pirates.”

“Well, that pirate hunting machine might not know it yet, but she’s into me,” Lucy said.

“What?”

“I flirted, she flirted back,” Lucy answered, shrugging. “It’s pretty simple.”

“She is literally your worst enemy,” Scud said. “The fact that you’re into her is already crazy enough! You’d have to be insane to think she likes you back!”

Suddenly, Lucy grinned, a wide, lazy smirk.

“Oh, I know that smile,” Scud said. “How do I know I’m not going to like whatever you say next? I’m not going to like it. Whatever it is, it’s a bad idea –”

“You’re not going to like it,” Lucy confirmed, getting back to her feet. “I am going to go prove that the DEBS perfect score does like me back. You’re welcome to stay here, if you want.”

“Lucy!” Scud practically wailed, but for all his objections, Lucy would not be stopped. Now that she had a plan in her head, she was firmly set on the idea. No one would expect a fugitive pirate captain not only to return to the city she had fled but also to sneak into the very heart of enemy territory. In a way, she’d almost be safer in the middle of the DEBS barracks than out here, on the beach by the hidden cove. And once she was inside the DEBS headquarters, she could find her lieutenant and see how she felt.

Despite his insistence that he wouldn’t enable her recklessness, Scud followed her back into the port, hissing a constant stream of protestations along the way. Luckily, the guards seemed no more alert now than they had been earlier, even though they must know by now that their incompetence had let her into their city earlier tonight. Scud’s nonstop complaints didn’t raise any alarms and the two slipped easily past the city gates. Under the very noses of the watchmen, Lucy and her first mate crept through the nighttime streets, making their way to the massive stone barracks that housed the DEBS fleet when its sailors were in port.

“I just want you to know that I’m only here under duress,” Scud whispered, as they crouched outside the DEBS barracks. “I want to state that for the record.”

“It’s been noted,” Lucy whispered back. “Now – you stay here and keep watch. I’ll be back as soon as we’re done.”

“What? Lucy – ? Lucy! That’s not a real time limit –” Scud hissed after her, but she ignored him as she swarmed up the stone walls of the barracks and dropped down lightly into the central courtyard.

Arched doorways all around the courtyard offered access to a frankly overwhelming number of possible entrances, and for a moment, Lucy worried that she’d never find Amy’s quarters in the dormitory complex.  But no – she had to keep a calm head, even as part of her was still fizzing with excitement from their verbal and physical sparring earlier this evening. Amy was a lieutenant, so she must have her own private room here at the barracks. That ruled out most the west half of the barracks – the boxy, tall buildings with their tiny porthole windows were clearly not officers’ quarters, and the tall tower had to be a command center. That left two possible building complexes. One of them was noticeably roughly-built, its entryways still propped up by wooden support beams, and looked like a layer of recent construction had been slapped on top of a crumbling, older building in disrepair. The other was a more permanent affair, its solid walls made from the same gray stone as the rest of the barracks.

Amy had said she was a lieutenant on the _Discipline_. Last autumn, the _Discipline_ had been grounded for repairs after it limped back to shore following a brutal, bruising encounter with two Spanish men-of-war. The DEBS commanders must have struggled to find a place to fit an entire frigate’s worth of sailors stuck in the barracks for the entire winter. Shoring up a collapsing older building with wooden supports to house the _Discipline_ ’s officers for the winter might have seemed like a reasonable solution.

At the least, the conjecture was enough to start with. Lucy could take a quick look through the crumbling building – and improvise if she was wrong.  It had worked well enough in _Les Deux Amours_ , anyway.

Picking the lock of the nearest wood-reinforced entryway with ease, Lucy slunk noiselessly into the narrow corridor inside the building. Keeping a careful ear out for the sound of anyone approaching, she slipped down the corridor and peered into the first room. A sleeping figure lay on the bed. Silently, she closed the door and crept further down the hallway.

The second door she tried proved more promising than the first. Opening the door revealed a storage closet – and wrapped up on top of yards and yards of canvas sails was a brightly colored flag. Unfolding the blue and yellow banner revealed the _Discipline_ ’s crest. At the very least, the ship’s tackle was housed in this building, if not its officers as well.

Lucy proceeded further down the hall, listening carefully at each door before she opened it. Most of the rooms held sleeping occupants, although several were empty – likely home either to officers assigned the night watch or to officers who were wringing the most carousing possible out of their enforced shore leave.

The twelfth room she tried, however, housed neither a sleeping nor an absent occupant. A tall woman with shining golden hair was kneeling by the sea chest at the foot of the bed. For a brief second, Lucy froze where she stood – and then she recognized the back of Amy’s head. Quietly, she stole into the room. But when she secured the door behind her, the latch clicked as it closed, and Amy sprang to her feet and spun around.

The lieutenant’s jaw dropped when she saw Lucy standing there in her doorway. For a long moment, she simply stood there, blinking in shock at her visitor. Lucy took advantage of her silence to appreciate the figure that Amy cut in her state of evening dishabille. Her coat and waistcoat were draped over the rickety chair that stood before her desk, and she was left in only her shirtsleeves, which were rolled up to expose the muscled forearms of a lifelong sailor and swordswoman. Having only seen her in full uniform earlier, catching her in this state of undress was felt strangely intimate, a stolen glimpse at this softer, more vulnerable, realer side of the lieutenant. The openness of Amy’s expression let Lucy see the tiniest hint of amusement in the curl of her lips – as if she were pleased that Lucy had returned and too surprised to bother hiding it.

At length, Amy cudgeled her countenance back under control and drew back on that stiff, uptight demeanor as though it were armor.  She folded her arms across her chest and glared at Lucy, who found herself mourning that lost hint of honest pleasure.  Nevertheless, the fierce, uptight officer look was also definitely working for her.  For one thing, the way she crossed her arms made the muscles in her bare forearms stand out nicely.

“What are you doing here?” Amy demanded.

“Can’t I just have wanted to visit the only naval officer I’ve ever left alive?” Lucy asked.  She leaned back against the wall, slouching insouciantly against the closed door.

Gingerly, Amy sat down on the edge of her bed, as if she were afraid that the mere act of sitting would trigger some sort of evil pirate-y instinct in Lucy. Lucy grinned at her. “Promise I don’t bite,” she offered. “I mean, unless you want me to.”

Amy blushed darkly, her cheeks coloring with endearing speed. “That’s not what I – what do you even – OK, what are you even doing here? You do realize this is literally the heart of enemy territory, right? You’re surrounded by DEBS here. If I just called out for help, you’d be arrested so fast your head would spin.”

Lucy shrugged. “Yeah, but you’re not going to call for help.”

“Oh, yeah? Any officer in this building would be delighted to detain you,” Amy said. “Hell, I could arrest you myself – march you down to the city brig in chains.”

“You won’t.”

“I should,” Amy said, the aggression evaporating from her tone and leaving her words quiet.

Let it not be said that Lucy was without sympathy. “Here,” she offered, drawing a pistol from her side and cocking it at Amy in one fluid gesture. “Now you don’t have any choice in the matter. You’ll have to let me go.”

Amy sighed and buried her face in her hands. “Is it terrible that that’s a relief?” she asked, her words muffled.

A sharp pang in Lucy’s chest fairly demanded that she cross the room to sit by Amy’s side. A more reasonable voice reminded her that comforting an enemy officer whose prickly feelings were still mostly a mystery to Lucy was a foolhardy decision.

Unfortunately, that reasonable voice in her head sounded like Scud for some reason. And Lucy hadn’t been in the business of paying attention to Scud’s advice tonight.

That alone was enough to make her walk over to Amy and sit next to her on the bed. She kept the pistol balanced in her lap, so Amy could see it.

“We’ve _got_ to talk about your problem with ever doing anything you’re not supposed to,” Lucy told her, keeping her voice light. “But if it helps to make me responsible for any of your misdeeds, for now, well – be my guest. I’m always up for adding a few more sins to my lifetime total.”

Amy raised her head again, but the way she was biting anxiously at her lip left Lucy still wanting to soothe her. ( _Or to bite that lip yourself_ , she admitted in the privacy of her own thoughts. But that was definitely not one of her nobler impulses, and she wasn’t going to give into it. The Scud-voice yelling loudly in the back of her head had the right idea this time.)

“Why didn’t you kill me?” Amy asked. “When Janet called, and my back was turned.”

Lucy blinked, momentarily taken aback by the change in topic. “Why would I want to kill you?”

“I’m a DEB lieutenant. Killing me is what you should do.”

“And there we go again with this thing you have about never doing stuff you aren’t supposed to,” Lucy said. “What’s life without breaking a few rules? Or spitting in the face of a few expectations?”

Amy shrugged and looked down at her hands. While Amy studied the fine whorls of lines on her palm and the thick calluses she’d gained from life at sea, Lucy let herself study the play of the lamplight across the bare skin revealed by Amy’s unbuttoned collar. Pirate, remember; stealing precious moments like this was what she lived for.

When Amy spoke next, her tone was carefully controlled: nonchalant and forcibly bright, steering the conversation back into shallower, safer waters. “Speaking of breaking expectations,” she said, “what was the deal with you and Ninotchka?”

“Ugh, God,” Lucy groaned. “She was a blind date – set up by my best friend – but honestly, I have _no idea_ what he was thinking.  She was unbearable!”

Amy giggled.  “I still can’t get over the fact that we thought – well, we thought you were meeting with her for, you know, business reasons. And it was a date.”

In response, Lucy adopted an exaggerated grimace.  “Oh, laugh at my misfortunes,” she teased.  “It’s not like you were the one who had to sit through twenty minutes of every possible way you can be smushed to death by a cannon.”

“Ah, but you have never been subjected to a date where your partner spends the entire evening explaining every accomplishment his father has ever attained and how he intends to recreate each one,” Amy retorted.  “So if anything, I win.”

“Stealing victory, like a pirate – I like it!” Lucy said, flashing Amy a quick grin to let her know she meant nothing by the comment.  “You’re talking about the guy who crashed everyone’s evening at _Les Deux Amours_?”

“He’s been a lot of trouble before, but he’s never managed to start a gunfight and a fire in a single evening,” Amy said.  “I don’t even know what I saw in him.”

“Well, I don’t know what Scud saw in Ninotchka that made him think she’d be a good match for me, so let’s call it even.”

“Sounds like a fair deal to me,” Amy said, and then, with a grin, offered her palm to the pirate.  Leaning forward, Lucy took Amy’s hand in her own and shook it.  The gesture was supposed to be mere clowning around, but the instant Amy’s skin touched her own, Lucy felt a shiver go up her spine.

Rather than letting her go, Amy let their interlinked hands fall onto the bedspread between them. In the charged silence that followed, Lucy found herself staring right into Amy’s eyes.  Up close, their startling blue was even more vivid, and Lucy found herself captivated by that striking shade and the clear skies and absolute freedom it promised.

“Do you ever feel like nobody understands you?” Amy asked. Lucy merely nodded, her breath still caught in her chest from holding eye contact with Amy.

Amy’s tongue darted out to wet her lips, and abruptly Lucy’s eyes darted down to her mouth.  “I’m really glad I met you,” Amy said.

“I’m – I’m really glad I met you, too,” Lucy said, without looking away from Amy’s lips.  All those thoughts she’d been having earlier about the way Amy had been biting her lip reverberated through her head again, and suddenly Amy’s mouth was moving closer, and Lucy wasn’t sure whether she was leaning in or Amy was leaning in or they both were leaning in, only she knew that in just a second, they’d be close enough to kiss –

The clatter when her pistol hit the floor sounded as loud as a gunshot in the quiet room.  Startled, both women both jerked back – and then scrambled further apart when they saw how close they were.

The dull metal and polished wood of Lucy’s gun gleaming in the lamplight like.  It lay on the floor like an accusation, reminding both of them of the pretexts they had abandoned and the people they were supposed to be outside this room.  Reality had reasserted itself, and as her more rational thoughts came rushing back in, Lucy found herself blushing almost as hard as Amy was.

 _Stop overthinking everything_ , she chided herself – but it was too late.  The moment was gone and Amy had backed away from her.

“You should go,” Amy said, standing up. “I really – you’re a pirate.  We shouldn’t – … well, we just shouldn’t.”

Her shoulders slumping, Lucy scooped up her gun from the ground.  Neither of them was in the right mood for anything now.  She’d pushed her luck quite far tonight, but even the best gamblers knew when to call it quits.

Still, she wouldn’t be a pirate if she didn’t cheat a little, so she paused before she opened the door and daringly asked, “When can I see you again?”

“It’s not a good idea –”

“When can I see you again?” Lucy repeated.

Amy chewed at her lip once again.  “I just – I’m not sure –”

“Well, you know where I am,” Lucy said, pressing her advantage. “I’ll be on the _Reynolds_. You know where to find me next time.”

And then she slipped out of the room and closed the door on a speechless Amy, already preparing herself to sneak back out into the night.

 

*

 

For the second morning in a row, Amy was awoken at a truly horrifying hour by Max. Her captain had been solicitous about her wellbeing last night, but Amy had shrugged her off, afraid that all the tumultuous, confusing feelings Lucy had stirred up during their encounter were as prominent on her face as they were in her mind.  That decision had been rewarded when Lucy had somehow appeared in her room, creeping in as insidiously and silently as smoke in the breeze.  Lucy would never have come to her if Max had been there, and if she hadn’t visited her again, they would never have – they would never nearly – well. Whatever had happened last night wouldn’t have happened if Max had been there, and that was the point.

Amy’s insistence that she was fine had apparently been reassuring, because Max was no gentler with her early morning grogginess than she ever was.  Briskly shaking Amy’s shoulder, she was wearing her usual morning glower when Amy finally opened her eyes to regard her.

“Please tell me Bobby didn’t send another damn messenger,” Amy said, the words traveling from her brain to her mouth with no filter at all.

Max’s scowl twitched up at the ends for just a moment.  “No, that would be ridiculous,” she said, and Amy let out a weary, relieved laugh.  “What it _is_ is Commodre Petrie.  She wants to hear your report in person.”

Amy stared at her.  “My … report?”

“Your report on Lucy Diamond! You’re the first sailor in her fleet ever to meet Diamond and live to tell the tale. After all the trouble Diamond’s caused her over the years, she’s sure to want the details firsthand,” Max said.

“Oh,” Lucy said. And then, “Oh,” again, when her tired mind switched into overdrive as she tried to figure out what she was possibly going to say to Commodore Petrie. With all the confused, too-bright feelings that were currently raging inside her, she could just about manage to fob her closest friends off with a non-explanation. Facing the commodore’s interrogation was going to be another realm of difficulty entirely.

She was still trying to figure out how to make the encounter sound innocuous fifteen minutes later when she, Max, and the other two exhausted lieutenants in their squad clambered up the steps to Phipps’s command tower. Stepping into the room, Amy felt a keen sense of déjà vu. Just as she had been yesterday, Commodore Petrie was sitting confidently beside Phipps, looking as self-assured and powerful as a ship-of-the-line in full sail. The image of the Commodore flattening other, smaller boats in front of her as she cruised forward at full speed made Amy grin involuntarily, a brief, furtive smile she quickly stifled. Still. The comparison was hardly inaccurate – and Amy was abruptly sure Lucy would find it funny, too.

 _And_ that _is why you need to keep your thoughts under control_ , she reproved herself firmly. _Stop thinking about Lucy._

As she had yesterday, Max entered the room last. When she stepped forward to assume her position at the head of her senior officers, however, Petrie stopped her with a single gesture.

“Which one of you is Lieutenant Henshaw?” she asked.

“Bradshaw,” Phipps muttered.

“That’s me,” Amy said, stepping forward. She felt a prickle of guilt as she passed Max – but it wasn’t as though she wanted to be the one talking to the commodore. She would gladly trade places with Max in a heartbeat.

Petrie gave her a long, assessing look. The onceover made her feel far more uncomfortable than any of Lucy’s lingering gazes – Petrie’s cold, calculating stare that made Amy feel as though she was itemizing Amy’s every quality and deciding how best to exploit each trait. “My God, you’re tall,” Petrie finally remarked. “Annie, is it?”

“Amy.”

“Exactly,” Petrie said, with a wave of her hand. “Good British name. Excellent. The French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch fleets have all been on the lookout for Diamond for weeks now, and who should find her? A nice young British officer. A nice young DEB officer.” She smiled, a genuine smile that really did reach her eyes – but in a way, its authenticity almost made it worse. The greedy satisfaction in her gaze should never be paired with a smile.

“Not only did you find her, Alice, you survived the encounter with her.” Petrie clapped her hands together in pure glee, and even Phipps bestowed one of his rare smiles on Amy. Usually, that hard-earned expression made her glow with pride, but for once, it left her even colder than before. “You have become the only naval officer ever to meet Captain Lucy Diamond and live to tell the tale.”

Petrie seemed to expect some sort of response, so Amy tried a simple, “Yes, ma’am.” Then she added, “But I wasn’t alone – Max was there, too, and Dominique and Janet. Max – uh, Captain Brewer – was really the one in charge.”

“But you were the only one who really made contact with her!” Petrie insisted. “This is excellent. This is really – this is exactly what our fleet needs, Addie, make no mistake. When Governor Matthews comes to renew our charter, you can be damn sure he’ll know that we are the only fleet capable of protecting his island from Lucy Diamond.”

“Uh, I’m not sure that’s the first thing Governor Matthews is going to think of when he hears my name –” Amy began, but Phipps was making urgent eye contact with her and shaking his head, so she decided to let discretion be the better part of valor and shut up about Bobby.

Luckily, the commodore was so caught up in her own starry-eyed vision of her fleet’s future that she ignored the entire exchange. “This is really going to put our ships on the map,” she said. “We need to seize this moment and build from here. If we’re the fleet whose officers can fight Lucy Diamond – fine, that’s enough to wrangle a few more ships and to get our charter stamped. But if we’re the fleet who could capture Lucy Diamond … well, let’s just say an Admiralship could be in our future.”

That “our” meant “my” apparently went unstated, Amy reflected wryly. And then the rest of her brain caught up with what Petrie had said, and she blurted, “Capture Captain Diamond?”

“Exactly,” Petrie said firmly. “It’s an excellent plan. I’m glad you’re on board.” She chuckled at her own pun and then continued, “We need you out in the water as soon as you can be, tracking down Diamond and calling on all the tricks and secrets you used to subdue her last time to catch her for real. Luckily, I called in a few favors with the governor, and he’s informed me that the shipyard carpenters will see their way to clearing the _Discipline_ for open sea travel by next week at the latest. Once the _Discipline_ is in the water again, you, Abby Bradley, are going to captain that ship and sail it right to Lucy Diamond. We’re pirate hunters, and it’s time to hunt a pirate.”

“Captain?” Amy squeaked, her voice almost gone with the shock, but Max beat her to a proper objection.

“Commodore Petrie, with all due respect, the _Discipline_ already has a captain – me,” Max said.

The commodore gave her a long, severe look – a displeased stare that left even Phipps’s well-honed frown of disappointment in the dust. “There isn’t any time for egos to interfere with this project,” she told Max. “We need to move fast to catch Diamond, before she plugs up whatever hole Ava found in her defenses. The future of our fleet could rest on it. I trust you understand the utmost importance of this mission, Captain Broder – or, should I say, Lieutenant Broder.”

From the corner of her eye, Amy could just about see Max’s expression. Although she always played her emotions close to the chest, Amy had been Max’s best friend for long enough that Amy could tell Petrie might as well have slapped Max across the face. Her lips thinned into a tense, frustrated line, and her unhappy eyes were over-bright with what Amy would never dare to call tears. Still, her voice was absolutely even when she said, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good,” Petrie said. “Now, Captain Crenshaw, I want you to outline a plan for hunting down Diamond. Talk it over with Phipps, and your officers – I’m sure they’ll be happy to contribute their advice. At the end of the day, though, I want you to trust your gut. You have my full and complete blessing to do whatever is necessary to take out Diamond. I’m counting on you to work that same magic again.”

 

*

 

The next two and a half weeks had to qualify as one of the most miserable periods in Amy’s entire life. And that was counting her first few days at sea, which she and Max spent green to the gills, trading shifts taking care of each other as they tried to get used to the endless rocking and pitching of the ship while also fulfilling the backbreaking drudge work required of junior seamen.

Max wouldn’t talk to her. She had tried to apologize, but Max had merely waved her off, a mix of resentment and sympathy in her eyes as she reminded Amy that Amy somehow had achieved everything Max had dreamed of and she didn’t even want it. The guilt sat low and uncomfortable in Amy’s stomach. Compounding that, she also found herself getting angry with Max as time passed – angry that she wouldn’t listen, angry that Max blamed her and not Petrie alone, angry that Max herself was angry. Although the bitterness at her best friend helped sustain her during her deepest bouts of self-pity, in the long run, she just felt even guiltier afterward for begrudging Max a perfectly reasonable reaction to the nonsense Petrie had pulled.

But all her guilt over Max still couldn’t eclipse the guiltiness she felt about the situation with Lucy Diamond. Phipps had taken to meeting with her every day to educate her on the pirate’s checkered past, her known ports of call, and any weaknesses they could exploit. Listening to Phipps’s tales of piracy and plunder should have easily cured Amy of any feelings she might have for the outlaw captain. But to her shame, Amy found that she couldn’t forget the intent way Lucy had looked at her when they had nearly kissed or the warmth in her voice when she had gently teased Amy about her brittle rigidity. In her weakest moments, Amy found herself wondering whether Lucy could really be that bad. Sure, Lucy stole merchants’ cargo – but other than a bit of theft, it wasn’t as though she was cruel or malicious, was she? And yes, there were all the rumors about her status as a ruthless killer – but couldn’t those be just as wrong as the stupid ballads were? After all, if all the people who had hunted her down had disappeared, it wasn’t as though any of them had returned to confirm that she was the one who killed them. Shipwrecks happened; bad storms happened; desertions happened. Maybe Lucy was just lucky. And at the end of the day, Amy just couldn’t believe that the warm, callused hand she’d held in her own could be the hand of a killer.

If trying to rationalize her feelings was tormenting her, trying to plan Lucy’s capture with Phipps was agonizing. Phipps expected the best from her; he knew her well enough to recognize a shoddy plan. But Amy couldn’t bring herself to write out a real strategy for snuffing out that irrepressible, authentic light in Lucy’s eyes, for confining her to a prison and banishing that smile from its rightful place on the seas. Lucy belonged on the ocean, free as the wind and twice as wild. So Amy faced Phipps’s disappointment and confusion day after day as she proposed half-baked schemes that he tore to pieces.

By the time the _Discipline_ was seaworthy again, Amy was heartily sick of her time on shore and happy to leave the oppressive misery of the DEBS barracks. If Commodore Petrie had told her that the future of the DEBS fleet depended on Amy never returning to port again, she’d welcome those orders with open arms. Being at sea always lifted her mood. For the first day, all her troubles were subsumed in the simple blissful freedom of being on the ocean again, tossed by the waves and surrounded by seascapes as beautiful as anything a Dutch painter could capture. The way the light glimmered on the blue water and the clouds flitted across the sky made Amy ache to capture each moment on canvas, but if she couldn’t paint it, at least she could see it. And after all, if she didn’t have paints, she at least had the canvas of her sails, and that had to be good enough. She excelled at sailing; it was just what she was supposed to do.

(In the back of her head, she heard a light, teasing voice say, _There we go again with this thing you have about never doing stuff you aren’t supposed to. What’s life without breaking a few rules? Or spitting in the face of a few expectations?_ But she ignored it, the same way she tried to ignore all the thoughts she had about Lucy.)

Although the first few days raised everyone’s spirits, as the _Discipline_ ’s crew delighted in finally exercising their sea legs again, the positive mood dissipated near the end of the first week. By the end of their second week at sea, the crew had begun to grumble. The fact that Amy had no real plan to catch Lucy Diamond was becoming more evident by the day. Several of the most loyal crewmembers had been giving her the cold shoulder on Max’s behalf, and every day more of them grew discontent. Amy found herself wondering whether she should legitimately start planning to deal with a mutiny.

So when their sixteenth day at sea brought with it the sight of a fast brigantine bearing the _Reynolds_ ’s infamous diamond standard, Amy nearly cheered. _You know where to find me next time_ , Lucy had said, and now she truly did. Evidently, Lucy had tired of waiting for next time – but Amy couldn’t say she was opposed to Lucy’s haste. Instead, the quiet, frustrated piece of her heart that she’d always stifled before was grateful, and for once, Amy let herself feel the emotion radiating out from that willful part of herself she usually ignored.

Pocketing her handheld telescope, Amy prepared to address her crew. “We’ve sighted the _Reynolds_ ,” she announced to all the seamen currently on deck. “Dominique, set our heading on an intercept course for Captain Diamond’s ship. Everyone else – prepare yourselves for battle.”

The _Reynolds_ had evidently seen them too, because the brigantine was tacking towards them. The two ships were soon on a collision course, sailing towards each other at a brisk clip.

Aware that Janet was their weakest link in combat, Amy assigned her the role of gun-captain. Max was glaring at her, but Amy forced herself to ignore her friend’s ferocious scowl. She knew what she was doing. She didn’t want Lucy’s ship to be actually damaged – didn’t want anyone to get hurt. She just wanted …

Well, she wasn’t sure what she wanted, so maybe she didn’t know what she was doing. But she wanted Lucy, and if Lucy still wanted her, well, she was sure they could work a deal out. They’d mastered the art of bargaining during their first encounter, after all.

Approaching a pirate ship was always a nerve-wracking experience, but Amy felt even jumpier than usual this time. So many of the vague hopes and dreams she had only just started allowing herself to consider were encapsulated in the ship they were rapidly closing on. It was a clear, windy day, and the sun beat down mercilessly on Amy and her sailors where they stood on the deck. The black fabric of her tricorn had grown so hot that Amy longed to remove it – but her crew would take that as an inauspicious sign, and she needed to boost morale. Her palms grew so sweaty that she wasn’t sure she’d be able to hold a sword once they boarded, and she wiped them anxiously on the fabric of her breeches.

And then they were within cannon range of the _Reynolds_ , and all of Amy’s other concerns faded away. There was only the battle before them.

As Amy had expected, the first volley of cannon fire that Janet directed strayed wide. It took the lieutenant far too long to get her gunners in place for the second round of shots. Several missiles in the second volley struck true, but by the time Janet had prepared for a third, the _Reynolds_ had drawn close enough that cannons weren’t going to turn the tide of the battle. It was a tactic any half-competent pirate would use when forced to confront a military vessel. Most pirate ships were wildly outgunned by real navy vessels, but they made up for it in speed and the size and ferocity of their crew. Getting near enough to minimize the impact of the cannons and maximize the force of their boarding party was an obvious strategy; Amy had just sped up the process, by sailing right into the _Reynolds_ ’s path rather than trying to keep her distance.

The first pirates swung aboard the _Discipline_ as soon as they were within range, entering the fray with a will. Soon, the clash of swords and sharp crack of gunshots filled the air. For some reason – perhaps due to faulty, cheap gunpowder; or maybe simply as a strategy for obfuscating their numbers – a disproportionate amount of smoke rose into the air as well, blanketing the deck in a thick, foggy haze. In the chaos, Amy found it almost impossible to continue her search for Lucy. She wanted to find her – she had to be here –

On her next inhale, Amy got a lungful of smoke, and she doubled over with a cough. She barely managed to get her sword up in time to block a blow from – was that one of her own men?

Right. She needed to pause and regroup. She couldn’t possibly find Lucy in this mess, and amidst the muddled disarray on deck, having more swordsmen swinging their blades about was actually a disadvantage. At this point, she could barely tell the difference between pirate and DEB sailor, and she was going to be no use to anyone if she ran her own crewmates through. Or was run through by one of her own crewmates, she reflected, as she parried another glancing blow from somewhere in the smoky fog.

Orienting herself on the deck, Amy set out towards the captain’s cabin. The smoke was unlikely to have spread inside yet, and she would have access to the ship’s maps and crew roster in there. Those would prove helpful for planning a counter-strategy.

As she reached the door, a tall figure loomed towards her out of the mist, just a dark silhouette against the smog. Tamping down on the instinct to draw her sword, Amy simply packed up a fist and punched him in the jaw, using brute force to strike an unexpected blow. The man went down like a sack of bricks, and Amy winced.

Well, knocked out was much better than dead, and bruises had to be preferable to stab wounds. Still, she muttered, “Sorry if you were on my side,” as she passed him by. Right behind his limp figure, she found the door to the cabin, and she wrenched it open with a harsh, satisfied gasp. Closing and locking the door behind her, she slumped down against its wooden boards, out of breath from both the fighting and the smoke.

Her vision took time to clear, so she didn’t see Lucy Diamond at first. When she noticed the other woman sitting at her desk, regarding her with a fond smirk, Amy scrambled to her feet.

“Captain Diamond?” Amy asked, the words tentative.

“I thought we got past that last time,” Lucy said.

“Lucy,” Amy said, and she sighed with relief. “I didn’t know – I wasn’t sure – Hi. I missed you.”

Lucy grinned. “I missed you, too. Got tired of waiting, so I decided to do a little pirate hunter hunting of my own.”

“Is that what you call this, then?”

“I’m here just for you,” Lucy told her, as though it could be as simple as that. “My own personal pirate hunter hunting expedition.”

Amy raised an eyebrow. “You brought a lot of people for a personal expedition.”

If anything, Lucy’s grin grew wider. “The first boarding party was a feint,” she said simply. “My guys set off a few smoky charges and then swung back over to my ship. By now, I figure some of your smarter crewmembers have figured out they’re only fighting against their own, but hopefully we’ll be gone by then.”

“We?” Amy asked.

Slowly, deliberately, Lucy walked across the room towards her. Her eyes never left Amy’s as she strode across the gently-rocking planks, and Amy felt her cheeks warm with a blush. The mischief and playfulness in those brown eyes was exactly as heady as she had remembered, and yet somehow she still wasn’t prepared. Lucy only stopped when she was close enough to touch – close enough for Amy to feel her breath against her face, to see how her chest rose and fell with every breath. As close as they’d been when they’d almost kissed.

Even from this close, Lucy looked every inch a pirate queen. Amy wanted to draw her – she wanted to keep her forever, just like the sea – she wanted to kiss her.

“Are you ready to become a pirate?” Lucy asked, her words flip but her eyes warm and dark and real.

“Yes,” Amy breathed. And then – because, at the end of the day, piracy was about stealing the sweetest things – Amy surged forward to capture a kiss.

Lucy huffed a surprised laugh – no doubt she’d expected to initiate their first kiss, but if Amy was a proper pirate now, Lucy was going to have to learn to expect such thievery – and Amy smiled against her lips. She pressed that joy into the kiss, trying to communicate all she felt with tongue and teeth alone – and Lucy responded in kind. The way she brushed her tongue against Amy’s, the gentleness in her bite as her teeth nipped lightly at Amy’s lips, the matching smile Amy could feel against her mouth – all these things contributed to making Amy feel like Lucy understood what she was trying to say and felt the exact same way. She felt indescribably lighter – as though Lucy was breathing something into her made all those places inside her heart that had grown rigid or been restrained start to relax and free themselves.

When they broke apart, breathless and panting, Lucy’s smile was bright as the sun.

“Seems you’re a dab hand at piracy already,” Lucy said. “Let’s see what kinds of mischief we can get up to together, Captain Bradshaw.”


End file.
